I saw some republican (may have been a campaign adviser or pollster) saying that Romney was going to do better than the polls said in Ohio because of voter enthusiasm. He said that pollsters base their expected turnout (in part) on the previous election results, but that Obama's supporters were less likely to vote than last time. It's an interesting concept (almost interesting enough to look into if I care that much about polls), the main takeaway would be that polls naturally favor incumbents.

From August 27 through October 21, 71 percent of MSNBC’s coverage of Mitt Romney this year was negative, far outperforming Fox News’s negative coverage of President Barack Obama, which came in at 47 percent, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s project for Excellence in Journalism. The negative-to-positive ratio on MSNBC was roughly 23-to-1; the negative-to-positive ratio on Fox News was 8-to-1.

From August 27 through October 21, 71 percent of MSNBC’s coverage of Mitt Romney this year was negative, far outperforming Fox News’s negative coverage of President Barack Obama, which came in at 47 percent, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s project for Excellence in Journalism. The negative-to-positive ratio on MSNBC was roughly 23-to-1; the negative-to-positive ratio on Fox News was 8-to-1.

I wonder what Fox News ratio was when reporting news that had to do just with the election campaign and not everything Obama did. My guess is their percentage on just that portion of coverage, which is pretty much what MSNBC reports on Romney, is as bad as the 71% or worse.

From August 27 through October 21, 71 percent of MSNBC’s coverage of Mitt Romney this year was negative, far outperforming Fox News’s negative coverage of President Barack Obama, which came in at 47 percent, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s project for Excellence in Journalism. The negative-to-positive ratio on MSNBC was roughly 23-to-1; the negative-to-positive ratio on Fox News was 8-to-1.

I wonder what Fox News ratio was when reporting news that had to do just with the election campaign and not everything Obama did. My guess is their percentage on just that portion of coverage, which is pretty much what MSNBC reports on Romney, is as bad as the 71% or worse.

The caveat, of course, is that this study in no way addressed relevence, factuality, degree, or journalistic basis of any of the statements.

In other words an MSNBC story slamming romney for backing a candidate who is campaigning upon the idea that females cannot get pregnant if they are "really" raped is just as "negative" as FoxNews reporting on whether Obama was born in the U.S.

From August 27 through October 21, 71 percent of MSNBC’s coverage of Mitt Romney this year was negative, far outperforming Fox News’s negative coverage of President Barack Obama, which came in at 47 percent, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s project for Excellence in Journalism. The negative-to-positive ratio on MSNBC was roughly 23-to-1; the negative-to-positive ratio on Fox News was 8-to-1.

I wonder what Fox News ratio was when reporting news that had to do just with the election campaign and not everything Obama did. My guess is their percentage on just that portion of coverage, which is pretty much what MSNBC reports on Romney, is as bad as the 71% or worse.

The caveat, of course, is that this study in no way addressed relevence, factuality, degree, or journalistic basis of any of the statements.

In other words an MSNBC story slamming romney for backing a candidate who is campaigning upon the idea that females cannot get pregnant if they are "really" raped is just as "negative" as FoxNews reporting on whether Obama was born in the U.S.

That's a very astute observation. But, the study does have some legitimacy. I've never been a fan of MSNBC, and this just reinforces that.

I don't do black music, I don't do white music. I make fight music, for high school kids.

I am not convinced that we have a population of citizens informed enough to vote on changes that so effectively influence social, foreign, domestic, and economic policies to such an immense scale, respectively. ID and a test at the booth.

You know, that kind of comment isn't new. Our prestigious founding fathers had huge reservations about the ability for the common man to effectively vote on large scale matters intelligently. That's part of the reason we have the electoral college. Also restrictions like land ownership and the like we're put in place so the poor people wouldn't rise up and vote to take all the rich people's money.

Of course other reservations have come along. People didn't trust freed spaces to vote intelligently or in the best interests of (white people) everyone. So they devised measures to keep them from voting. And women of course couldn't be trusted, so they weren't allowed to vote, until they won the right to.

Everytime we talk about restricting voting access, or putting in measures that would indirectly prohibit people from voting, there are always sensible reasons behind them that basically come down to: I dot trust these people to have a hand in making decisions, also, they disagree with me, so they're wrong.

A test at the booth you say? Well who writes the questions? We still can't get a standardized test for high school kids that is race and gender neutral. And who grades the tests? You'd limit the liberty we all hold so dear far more than if you allow people who are probably uninformed to vote. It's pretty common knowledge that you're a huge Ron Paul guy. Wouldn't it be more in line with libertarian philosophies to just let everyone vote? To let the market, as it were, decide? Shouldn't it be our right as a nation to let the chips fall where they may, with the implication being that if the stakes reallly were that high, we'd recognize this fact and vote with our feet?

People are uninformed, but you correct that through education, not through prohibiting their right to vote.

Little by little Obama seems to be widening the gap in Ohio, while Romney's lead in Florida seems to be shrinking...

Yet, they're both hitting Ohio hard. From Obama's standpoint, it makes sense since a Ohio win practically guarantees he wins the election. But is he missing an opportunity in Florida, a state with more electoral votes? Same goes for Romney, maybe he figures that if he loses Ohio, his path to victory will be very hard, yet I can't help but imagine if he should be focusing more efforts in Florida to make sure that state remains his.

Not sure of what's the correct way to go, if I were Obama I'd jump on Florida this weekend.

Little by little Obama seems to be widening the gap in Ohio, while Romney's lead in Florida seems to be shrinking...

Yet, they're both hitting Ohio hard. From Obama's standpoint, it makes sense since a Ohio win practically guarantees he wins the election. But is he missing an opportunity in Florida, a state with more electoral votes? Same goes for Romney, maybe he figures that if he loses Ohio, his path to victory will be very hard, yet I can't help but imagine if he should be focusing more efforts in Florida to make sure that state remains his.

Not sure of what's the correct way to go, if I were Obama I'd jump on Florida this weekend.

From today:

Quote

Florida continues to look good for Mitt Romney. The Republican holds a 6-point lead in the state essential to his hopes of defeating President Barack Obama, according to a new Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/Miami Herald poll.

Little by little Obama seems to be widening the gap in Ohio, while Romney's lead in Florida seems to be shrinking...

Yet, they're both hitting Ohio hard. From Obama's standpoint, it makes sense since a Ohio win practically guarantees he wins the election. But is he missing an opportunity in Florida, a state with more electoral votes? Same goes for Romney, maybe he figures that if he loses Ohio, his path to victory will be very hard, yet I can't help but imagine if he should be focusing more efforts in Florida to make sure that state remains his.

Not sure of what's the correct way to go, if I were Obama I'd jump on Florida this weekend.

From today:

Quote

Florida continues to look good for Mitt Romney. The Republican holds a 6-point lead in the state essential to his hopes of defeating President Barack Obama, according to a new Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/Miami Herald poll.

It definitely seems that Florida is becoming competitive for Obama again: the TBT poll previously gave Romney a +7 advantage, and all the other polls this past week (NBC/WSJ, Ipsos/Reuters, Gravis) show either Obama or Romney ahead, but within the margin of error for both.

However, I think Obama would be wise to keep focusing on Ohio, and if he considers shifting resources, it should be to VA rather than FL.